Examples:

Sicilian Scheveningen

Lasker vs Capablanca, 1936

Modern Benoni

Capablanca vs Janowski, 1924

Alekhine vs Capablanca, 1927

Capablanca vs Marshall, 1927

(I think the Modern Benoni should be renamed into the Capablanca-Marshall)

Benko Gambit

Nimzowitsch vs Capablanca, 1914

Marshall Attack

What scientific studies there have been about chess seem to support the <chunking hypothesis>, which holds that chess mastery comes from having a big repertoire of chess patterns. This does not require an increase in brain capacity.

Here's a typical citation: Gobet, Fernand, and Herbert A. Simon. "Expert chess memory: Revisiting the chunking hypothesis." Memory 6.3 (1998): 225-255.

A quote from the abstract: "Masters in our new study used substantially larger chunks than the Master of the 1973 study..."

It could be that Capablanca had more, larger and better quality chunks than other masters of his time, but not necessarily of today's top players. I don't think it works to pick out an individual pair like Capablanca vs Marshall, 1918 versus Carlsen vs Bu Xiangzhi, 2017 to come to far-reaching conclusions; one would need a carefully defined methodology to compare as a whole the works of Capablanca, Carlsen, and their contemporaries.

There is a theory that short term memory works in <chunks>. Essentially that means that your limbic system stores short term memory best in chunks of up to four. (In contrast long term memory is localized in the cerebral hemispheres' cortices.) That's why you can memorize something like phone numbers more efficiently if you divide them into chunks of 3 or perhaps up to 4. Are these authors claiming that somehow this proves that a pre-WW2 master can't play middegames and endgames as well as a present day masters? That's like saying 1 + 1 = 2, and using it to prove that 2 + 2 = 5.

<"Masters in our new study used substantially larger chunks than the Master of the 1973 study>

The quote that you cite sounds speculative hypothesis at best. The ones generally accepted worldwide enter our textbooks and that citation has not. Or at the very least are known by your local Psychiatrists, Neurologists, or neurosurgeons. If any of such similar studies specifically pertaining to has been accepted by most people trained in various fields of the Neuro Sciences, I certainty would have read of it in our textbooks, or heard of it from other Neurosurgeons, some of whom (including my old master and mentor who always would invite me to play chess with him in his spare time after he found out I used to be a below 13 age bracket National Chess Champion of our country) include chess among in their favorite hobbies.

Frankly, I don't agree with it if what they are implying is that pre-WW2 masters can't play chess as well as present-day ones. I've seen enough games pre-WW2 and post-WW2 that are counter examples.

If you have studied both Capablanca vs Marshall, 1918 and Carlsen vs Bu Xiangzhi, 2017, and read the evidences I and <Jonathan> have posted in this site, and still believe that pre WW2 masters can't play middegame and endgames as well as present day ones, I would say that no amount of evidence will convince you otherwise that your thesis could be wrong. I am sorry to say that the simplest explanation why you are ignoring all the empirical data in front of you (and digging up more unclear speculations by the above authors) is that you have a bad case of the narcissistic generation syndrome yourself, and are acting like a die-hard Watsonian propagandist.

If you have been wondering why I haven't been discussing this topic with you anymore (except to correct more Watsonian propaganda if I come across it in other pages of this site for the sake of new kibitzers who are new to the topic), well... I don't quite have the time to repeat all the discussions about this topic with you in the Alekhine forum. I think you are an intelligent person, but the evidences I presented just flew past your head; not because you are unintelligent, but because of a bias that causes you to ignore clear empirical evidences.

Larsen was probably more intelligent than either one of us, yet was completely blinded by his own bias thanks to the narcissistic generation syndrome. How the heck could he say he would easily crush any 1920s master after:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches... and

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches...

As for Watson, how could he claim pre WW2 Masters were inferior after getting crushed in Keres vs J L Watson, 1975

He actually insulted Keres' generation AFTER he already got crushed by Keres just when the old master was about to die of a heart attack a few months later. He was so blind that he did not realize that Keres began his career in the 1920s. That's how biases can affect judgment in quite respected and intelligent people.

Am I being judgemental of you? I guess I am, but I have already presented all the evidences needed again and again and you just keep on ignoring them. OK you'll shoot flak at me for saying out my mind, but seeing how you are still following me around after all the evidences I had presented in the AAA page, I believe this topic has become a kind of personal competition with you; and so IMO nothing else would work with you but the painful truth.

Instead, my main point was: those who side with masters of today, don't do it based on <a brain theory of skill> but based on <a culture theory of skill>. Above, you said <brains are touted>, and I don't think that accurately represents anyone's position.

Just saw your comment at Anand vs Carlsen, 2015 where it is clear that Carlsen does respect the old masters and studies their games, just as Fischer used to. A few years ago, he said that he admires Reuben Fine, "It strikes me that what he was doing in chess is similar to what I was doing." (cited in http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node....)

It implies that present-day players have limbic systems that somehow can memorize short term memories of more than 4 chunks, while the old masters can only manage up to 4. What?! The limbic system of every human in history has been 'hard-wired' by genes by age 4. It's not as if humans born after WW2 have a different 'wiring'.

Perhaps these authors are saying that present-day masters have memorized more opening variations? If so, I agree. But that certainly does not mean that the old masters cannot memorize more variations too, if they happened to have been born more recently; as what the statement to seems to be implying.

<It strikes me that what he was doing in chess is similar to what I was doing>

Fine was known as being a positional monster during his heydays, playing unpretentious openings but aggressive accurate and positionally sound middle games. Well, that's precisely what Carlsen is today.

I can see the similarities of their style and I understand Carlsen's admiration for Fine.

BTW I could never completely comprehend why Fine quit chess so early in his career. Why in the world would he refuse to play in the 1948 Candidates? It was a great loss for chess. I do not think that it was merely to continue with his Psychiatry career.

Samuel Reshevsky beat Reuben Fine 5 to 1, with 14 draws, but before the event it was 4 to 1, and lots of draws.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches...

Paul Keres beat Reuben Fine 3 to 1, with 8 draws, which is the best record against Fine, and it's not quite dominating.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches...

Reuben Fine tied Max Euwe 2 to 2, with 3 draws, but before the event it was 3 to 2 for Fine.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches...

Reuben Fine beat Mikhail Botvinnik 1 to 0, with 2 draws, so Fine had already proven that he could beat Botvinnik.

One is the impossibility of making a living from chess in the USA of his day, and, related to this, the uselessness of the USCF. E.g. they didn't want FIDE to select the obvious Reshevsky and Fine for the world championship tournament, but wanted to pick the American reps.

Related to this was his career in psychoanalysis (really quite a farce overall, with his silly comments about chess and the Oedipus complex etc.). That was a reason he gave at the time, but decades later, he claimed that this was a Soviet fabrication. Fine was somewhat economical with the truth on a number of occasions.

One is the impossibility of making a living from chess in the USA of his day>

“Fine was a formidable player with a solid and sound style that had been compared to Maroczy, Euwe or Karpov. Arnold Denker even went so far as to compare Fine's play to that of Fischer. Fine’s play was rarely flashy and he was always prepared to make a passive, unspectacular move just to bide his time. He was always confident that an opportunity to gain the advantage would inevitably arise because he always thought he was the better player.

“In his notes to one game Fine described his approach: My chief objective was always precision, wherever that would take me. When he needed to win, he didn’t take risks in order to avoid the draw and seek critical positions. Instead he simply intensified the accuracy of his positional play—and scored win after win with surprising persistence.

For ex, the game below could well have been played by Carlsen. Fine grabs material, then just keeps on improving his position from a rather cramped start, and wins in the end playing accurately.

Fine vs Stahlberg, 1937

1. Set up a sound pawn structure. If possible set this up as a classic pawn-occupied center. If not, make sure it is sound anyway.

2. Maneuver pieces behind and around this sound pawn structure, always prepared to grab more space, and create and target opponent's weaknesses, exploit any situational development that can lead to an offensive. Sometimes this entails maneuvering around his first rank, but Carlsen isn't adverse to this.

3. Maintain accuracy at all costs.

His latest game

Carlsen vs Caruana, 2017

shows Carlsen doing this precisely. Note the sequence of moves

9. e4 cxd4 10. Nxd4 Bb7 11. Be3 Bc5

and White has advanced a pawn in the center e4 square and maneuvered his Dark Colored Bishop behind it, targeting Black's weak Queen-side Black pawns and squares.

Then what IMO is a typical Carlsenesque maneuver (complete with a creeping Queen move in the first rank)

12. f3 O-O 13. Qe1 Rc8 14. Qf2

applying more pressure on the Black Queen-side Black pawns and squares, and suddenly it's clear that White has a long term advantage with a strong center and space behind to engage in even more maneuvers. (I am almost sure that Carlsen may have missed a win somewhere in the endgame, but I don't have a chess program to verify this. To is credit Caruana also defended well.) I like the 12. f3 13. Qe1 14. Qf2 sequence.

Fine also seemed to have such a style. It's not flashy, and carried over for the whole of the middlgame and endgame looks dry to many kibitzers. Their moves are not unexpected, and there is hardly a moment for the onlooker (and probably for their opponents as well) of 'Wow! I did not see that coming'.

Carlsen fans will probably flake me for saying this, but IMO there are hardly any interesting twists or imaginatively and unexpectedly creative attacks. But I am not saying that it's wrong. On the contrary, Carlsen may have the most positionally 'correct' style of all World Champions.

I think Carlsen's success has come from creating a style that is very effective against the current level of competition. I'm not sure what the style is, exactly, but less than rigorous openings, a middlegame style that is 60% aggressive and 40% solid, and an incredible ability to grind out wins in the endgame after a drawish looking middlegame that often comes due to a late game blunder by the opponent. I admire it, although I do understand why his detractors don't. I think Lasker is the closest predecessor in style to Carlsen, just a universalist who does what it takes to win. Perhaps Carlsen would evolve a new style if he needed to, but what he's doing now is working.

I've already essentially said so in the past: I think Capablanca would be World Champion today had he been born in the 1980s to 90s. I follow live chess games of top GMs today in the internet (including Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik); and in my subjective view, they commit errors that IMO a prime Capablanca would never have done so. (For instance Capablanca during his unbeaten in 1916 to 1924 run would never have committed the errors Carlsen did in in Carlsen vs I Nepomniachtchi, 2017 or even in Carlsen vs Bu Xiangzhi, 2017 See my posts in those games.)

<An Alekhine of 2017 would blast some of the mediocre openings to pieces in less than 30 moves.>

AAA certainly had the ability to do so. Now there is an argument among some kibitzers that AAA could not do such a thing to modern top level GMs.

That's just plain false. There are dozens of games where he does this to top level masters. I've replayed enough of his games to know that if he gets a sound initiative from the opening (or middlegame) he is liable to blast any one off the board, even the strongest of masters. Ex 1: AAA shellacs a future USSR Champion and one whom Botvinnik couold not beat in their match Botvinnik - Levenfish (1937) right out of the opening, in the style of the classic 'immortal games' Alekhine vs Levenfish, 1912. Ex 2. AAA crushes Keres in a highly tactical double-edged middle game, seeing variations that Keres (one of the greatest tacticians of chess history) could not see Alekhine vs Keres, 1942

<A Karpov of 2017 wouldn't lose, ever, against a less than rigorous opening.>

Since I essentially grew up in the Karpov era, I have seen a LOT of his games, and I do agree. How the heck can you beat someone that plays like is in a match if you play only 'positionally' out of a <less than rigorous opening>? Karpov vs Gulko, 1996 (And this was already a has-been 1996 Karpov.)

<I don't see any equivalent players of this generation who can challenge Carlsen. Aronian had a run, Caruana maybe a year's run, Kramnik still has something left, maybe So, but without demeaning them, I don't think they're an especially imposing bunch of opponents.>

This is an important point. To make it more concrete, I will give a comparison.

Fils in general have nothing much to be proud of in the field of international competition (unless it's beauty contests of which we have won quite a lot recently thanks to a well established highly professional 'beauty' industry.) So when Pacquiao came along, nearly everyone here swooned over in joy.

I rarely watch boxing ever since operating on a boxer that got KO'd in a boxing bout in my residency days. But from what I have seen of his fights, Pacquiao seems to be one of the greatest fighters of his weight category.

Yet I also believe he was lucky. He arrived in an era wherein really great boxers in their prime were absent. My nationalistic countrymen will fry me for saying so, but IMO had Pacquiao been active in the time of Sugar Ray Robinson, or in the era of Sugar Ray Leonard/ Duran/ Hearns/ Hagler, then he would not have stood up head and shoulders above the pack. I think he would more likely have lost than won against them.

Good evening:

You have 22 pgn submissions in the system, but 7 of them have a type of notation that I fear will not be processed properly by <Olga>.

This is the notation in question: "�"

Did you keep a list of your current pgn submissions? If so, can you find a way to re-submit them without using the � notation?

Here are two of your submissions on queue- I am not at all certain that <Olga> will be able to properly read the � :

==============

[Event "New Zealand Championship"]
[Site "Dunedin, New Zealand"]
[Date "1974.12.27"]
[EventDate "1974�75"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Garbett, Paul Anthony"]
[Black "Metge, J. Nigel"]
[ECO "C17"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.Bd2 Nc6 6.Nb5 Bxd2+ 7.Qxd2 Nxd4 8.Nxd4 cxd4 9.Nf3 Ne7 10.Qxd4 Bd7 11.Bd3 Qa5+ 12.c3 Rc8 13.a4 b5 14.Qg4 g6 15.Qf4 h6 16.h4 bxa4 17.h5 g5 18.Qf6 Rg8 19.O-O Bb5 20.Bxb5+ Qxb5 21.Nd4 Qc4 22.f4 1-0

===

[Event "Queensland Champs"]
[Site "Brisbane, AUS]
[Date "2019.10.06"]
[EventDate "2019"]
[Round "6"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "McClymont, Brodie"]
[Black "Liu, Yi"]
[ECO "AC03"]
[WhiteElo "2332"]
[BlackElo "2247"]

<Jonathan Sarfati>

The machine won't process them still.

I would try again but with these changes:

===

<1.> Instead of piece figure notation- type out letters only N,B,Q,K,R.

================

<2.> If you include a Date tag or an EventDate tag, it has to have all three time markers filled in. If you don't know the month or day, you need to type in "??"

Not this: [EventDate "2019"]

But rather this: [EventDate "2019.??.??"], or [EventDate "2019.09.??"], or [EventDate "2019.09.22"]

==============

<3.> For annotations, instead of using plain parentheses [ ], use these ones: {}

===

<4.> Be sure to double check that your submission is not already in the database

==================

Here is a sample game that will show my suggestions in the pgn. Just click "view" on this game and you will see the pgn. I would use it as an exemplar:

<Jonathan Sarfati>

Ok of those games you submitted so far that did not get processed and published, re-submit them today and I will take a very close look at the pgns.